The West Wing For Real! Lowe To Create DC Reality Show

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Rob Lowe has been a busy fellow of late, wrapping up a stint over at ABC’s “Brothers and Sisters” only to hop right into a role on NBC’s “Parks & Recreation.” Now, Lowe is branching out into reality TV production, and returning to the place of his “West Wing” and “St. Elmo’s Fire” heydays: Washington, DC. The Washington Post reports Lowe is planning to doing a reality show called ”Potomac Fever.” Here are some of the details:

Actor Rob Lowe has teamed up with the production company 44 Blue to launch a reality series with the working title "Potomac Fever," which, according to a company executive, will follow the adventures of young Washingtonians as they try to move up the ranks in the D.C. scene.

The news comes less than two weeks after the D.C. season of Bravo's "Top Chef" opened with the smallest crowd since the first season in March 2006, and a few months after MTV's long-running "Real World" franchise limped out of Washington with the lowest-rated season in the show's history…

Lowe, whose spokesman said he was unavailable for comment, told the trade publication Variety, which first reported the story late last week, that he has an "affinity for the adventures of young Washingtonians."

"They live and love at the center of world power," Lowe said. "I can't wait to tell their stories."

That bit about moving up the ranks of the “DC scene” makes me immediately think of the horror that is Late Night Shots, the invitation-only DC social networking site for people who were born with seersucker shorts on. As someone who has lived in the DC area for more than six years, I can tell you that, no matter how hard it tries, there will always be a distinctly uncool element to DC. The sheer number of political workers and lawyers that live here serve to overwhelm any kind of burgeoning creative community. That’s why ratings for The DC Real World and Top Chef installments have been low. When people think of DC, they think of politics. And most people HATE politics. It’s hard to separate the rest of DC from that, fair or unfair.

So Lowe has his work cut out for him. Fictionally, DC has served him very well. But I think he’ll find the real DC to be a whole other ball of wax.